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Saturday, January 24, 2009

I can never remember which day in the Blog Week is supposed to be wordless. And which one is all about the sky. Is there one about the Wordless Sky, too? I'm confused.

This male anhinga was so durn purty that I just had to share him—wordlessly or not. I encountered him as he was drying his wings on a chilly morning at Viera Wetlands.

Anhingas are interesting birds. Whenever I get to see one, I am reminded of the very first one I saw on a Florida trip with my family in the early 1970s. Driving through the Everglades, we noticed all these dark birds with snake-like necks swimming in the water and perching near it with outstretched wings. What WERE these things?

We laughed when we found the bird in our Peterson guide. It was the anhinga. Back home in Pella, Iowa, we knew a family (of Dutch origin as most in Pella were) with the last name Hinga. They had a daugher named Ann.

No lie. Ann Hinga.

Last night at dinner, Robert Kirk from Princeton University Press, posed the question: How many birds are like the anhinga, which has the same name for its common name as it does for its genus and species (its two-part Latin name). In other words, the anhinga is noted in field guides thusly:

Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)

Are there any other birds with this unusually repetitive name structure? Have I left you wordless in pondering this question? I certainly hope not.

Beth and I immediately thought of: Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) Eurasian Buzzard (Buteo buteo)Winter Wren (Troglodytus troglodytes)A little searching and we found:Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)Corn Crake (Crex crex)At this point we got a grip, had a chuckle, and went back to real life. Thanks for the break. Beth just found the Greater Honeyguide, Indicator indicator, now there's a name that means something. We really have to quit!

Well, I think the anhinga is unique in having common and scientific name all matching for bird species. In the mammal world, there is the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx)and the Bison (Bison bison)(I think Katdoc had something on her blog about this.) But one that I like who only has a double scientific name is our friend the skunk (Mephitis mephitis) which means bad odor. So its name means it is an extra stinky winky. :)

I'm going to do some research, but I recall reading somewhere that the Anhinga is the only bird in the New World with the same common, generic, and specific name. Hopefully if I can find the reference it would pin down where the other bird(s) would be. Or eliminate a hemisphere, at least.

Wow it is funny Ann Hinga Klein responded. Just like real birding--mention it and up it pops.

The Anhinga is also a sacred bird of the Peyote ceremonies. The Water turkey and tail feathers are used in the ceremonial fans. I have piece of silver jewelry that is an anhinga I bought on one of my trips out west. The anhinga is also believed to be the Thunderbird. Why it is sacred to the Cheyenne people is unbeknownst by me.

Hi, Bill! It's been a treat for me to have landed in your online community. You and Julie can add my family to your list of readers... we just picked up a copy of her beautiful book. And thanks to elizabird et al, I have a new appreciation of Anhingas. All the best!

Hi everyone - to all you birdlovers out there, here is a song I wrote about anhingas:http://www.broadjam.com/player/player.php?play_file=24409_182536&sessionID=56EDC2430C744A45A21EB9B463B5A902&sessionINDEX=17079Enjoy! Mrs. Kate Carpenter the folksinger from Callahan, FL. You can also download this song on itunes.

About Bill

Bill of the Birds

Bill Thompson III is the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest by day. He's also a keen birder, the author of many books, a dad, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, a guitar player, the host of the "This Birding Life" podcast, a regular speaker/performer on the birding festival circuit, a gentleman farmer, and a fungi to be around. His North American life list is somewhere between 673 and 675. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker. His "spark bird" was a snowy owl. He has watched birds in 25 countries and 44 states. But his favorite place to watch birds is on the 80-acre farm he shares with his wife, artist/writer Julie Zickefoose. Some kind person once called Bill "The Pied Piper of Birding" and he has been trying to live up to that moniker ever since.